Three times each semester the Institute for Biblical Worship at Southern Seminary hosts a special speaker and lunch for the worship majors enrolled in the Boyce College and Seminary music and worship programs. In the past we’ve had a wide variety of guests including Matt Boswell, Keith Getty and Mike Harland. We try to expose our students to influential voices in the area of worship leadership and ministry beyond the classroom. You can hear recordings of past presentations here.

In his chapel message at SBTS on February 21, Dr. Denny Burk spoke on 2 Timothy 2:22, where Paul reminded Timothy to “flee youthful passions.” It is not coincidental that Dr. Burke is sensing the same concern for students throughout the entire seminary that we have for our worship majors.

The sobering story of Brandon Watkins

Last week, we had a speaker named Brandon Watkins. Brandon drives a Schwan’s food truck. He gets up every morning at 2:30 a.m. and delivers frozen food to the customers on his route in this region of Kentucky. He didn’t always work for Schwan’s. Several years ago he was a student at Southern in what was then the School of Church Music. Throughout his high school and college years, Brandon sang for a traveling evangelist in a ministry that took him all over the world. When Brandon speaks you can tell he can sing. . . he has that natural, resonant quality to his vocal tone you often hear from someone on a stage in Nashville.

Until about seven years ago, Brandon was a full-time worship pastor in a large, growing church in the south. He was married and had two little girls. But he lost them and everything else in life because of an addiction. While he was in high school he, like so many other young men, began looking at pornography. As a Christian and a traveling musician in an evangelistic ministry, he convinced himself that he could “manage” the sin. After all, good Christians (especially traveling evangelists) aren’t supposed to struggle with bad things like porn, and he didn’t want to admit he had a problem.

Brandon said this to our students:

“When sin isn’t exposed to the light, it leads to a stronghold, and when a stronghold isn’t dealt with, it leads to an addiction.”

Brandon’s story is heartbreaking. At the height of his deception, he still thought he could “manage” the double life of being a worship pastor and a daily customer at a strip club. He justified his actions by saying that God didn’t answer his prayers. Here was his prayer: “God, if you want me to quit going to the strip club, then take my voice away from me.” He told our students it was incredible the things he would come up with to justify his double life. His singing voice stayed strong, the ministry at his church flourished, and he kept right on living in the darkness of what he thought was a secret sin.

Rock bottom

Finally, the stress and burden of lies and deceit became too much and he confessed to his wife, his pastor, and his church what he had been hiding. For the next six months, he lived the life of the prodigal son. There was no more hiding what he had become, and he stepped completely out of the light and into darkness. Five months later, on his 31st birthday, he was alone on the back porch of his empty house. The water and heat had been turned off, and other than a mattress and a table, there was not any furniture in the empty rooms of the home he once shared with his family. As he sat on his porch and looked down at the half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels next to him, reality finally hit him—he had hit bottom.

Watkins’ testimony opened the eyes and ears of several of our students. He told them his pride kept him from asking for help and his arrogance duped him into thinking at each stage of his growing addiction that he could “manage” his sin and deceive everyone around him. Through his tears, he looked at our students and said, “Each one of you is living in one of three categories right now:

  1. You are actively and intentionally protecting yourself from a fall because you know you are vulnerable.
  2. You are in the middle of a fall.
  3. Or you are arrogantly thinking you will never fall—and if that’s the case—you’ll be calling me within five years and asking for my help because you’ve lost everything.

I once heard a pastor say that among men who are no longer in ministry because of moral failure, the fall was never a moral blowout, but a slow leak. Those men let down their guard on the small things, like a second look at the tabloid in the grocery store check-out line, or a daydream that fueled lustful thoughts. For Brandon, and all of us, this is a battle that never ends. The measures of protection match the severity of the sin. Brandon and his new wife, Kala, do not have internet at their house.

Why should we take address a topic like this? Because so many worship leaders and pastors are struggling with the devastating sin of pornography. During the Q&A time with Brandon, one of the students asked, “Why aren’t we talking about this more and being proactive in battling against it?” Brandon said that when he was younger he didn’t want to share his battle because a worship leader wasn’t supposed to be dealing with a sin like porn.

As he ended his testimony, Brandon introduced his mentor, Ray Carroll, who has a book and a ministry called Fallen Pastor (www.fallenpastor.com). In the last few years since he began this ministry, Ray has spoken with more than 500 pastors who have fallen. Over and over throughout Brandon and Ray’s talk with our students, they encouraged the students to seek help, develop true accountability, and shed light on the sin.

So, whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall. No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humanity. God is faithful, and He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape so that you are able to bear it. (1 Corinthians 10:12-13)

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Joe Crider is the Ernest and Mildred Hogan Professor of Church Music and Worship and serves as executive director, Institute for Biblical Worship. He also serves as worship pastor at LaGrange Baptist Church in LaGrange, Kentucky.